Gigi woke me up laughing at her own funny thoughts. I guess this is healthy.

We started talking about whether I went to kindergarten or not.

“No I did not go to formal kindergarten. I went to some place where you finger painted and developed social skills for a few months”, I said.

I remember watching John Glen lift off for a three orbit ride on a Mercury spacecraft. My dad then took me to kindergarten and told me John Glenn would land by the time I got home at lunch.

Gigi asked, “Did you used to eat the glue?”

“It was paste Gigi, and yes I ate it. Everyone ate paste.”

At art time everyone got a torn piece of paper and they would come by with a big jug of thick paste. With a broken yard stick the teacher would dig out a dollop of paste and plop it on your piece of paper and told you not to eat it.

Everyone would sneak a lick of paste, the stuff tasted minty. It’s like everyone sniffed fresh mimeograph paper back then. It's what you did as a kid; eat paste and sniff chemicals on paper.

I tailgated yesterday with an old school friend from Durham. We were in first and second grade together.

His name is Bash, short for Sebastian. Imagine two little boys in the first grade with names like Sebastian and Reginald.

I asked him if Mrs. Witherspoon ever whipped has ass and he confirmed he got a butt whooping from time to time. I got spanked once for being a smartass.

In the second grade Bash got his mouth washed out with soap from the ever lovely Miss Pearson. She would take a bar of soap and a toothbrush and scrub out your mouth in the classroom bathroom. We would all sit in silence listening for any signs of struggling or crying.

I remember Bash took it like a man although his face was very red when he came out of the bathroom.

Yesterday Bash was drinking some kind of beer that looked like used motor oil. I guess that soap dulled his senses.

A couple of things to point out here in this bottom picture; John (Tree as he is known) does not have on pajamas. Those are the official NFL team patches sewed onto his fleece lined jeans of all teams except Dallas.

The lid on my grill is seared in brat and burger grease from just this season.

That box of crackers to the left is some new cracker that claims to be a cracker on one side and a pretzel on the other. Don’t bother they are nasty.